1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to stackable containers. More particularly, the invention relates to a stackable container for use in delivering baked products, and a method for its use.
2. Background Art
The use of plastic containers for the storage and delivery of baked products is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art of the present invention. Such containers generally incorporate features such as a merchandising window, which allows consumers to obtain product stored in the container, even though there may be one or more similar containers stacked above the container with the product in it. Merchandising windows reduce the amount of labor expended by retailers because they do not have to continually remove empty containers to allow consumers access to product stored on other containers when several other containers are stacked in the retail stores. Other well known features included stacking in a 0° stacking configuration and a 180° stacking configuration. The 0° stacking configuration describes the configuration when a second, similar container is placed upon a lower container such that the front wall of the upper and lower container face the same direction. In the 180° stacking configuration, the front wall of the upper container is located above the rear wall of the lower container. Usually, the 180° stacking configurations increases the efficiency of stacking empty containers because when in the 180° stacking configuration, the upper container partially nests within the lower container, reducing the total height of the stacked containers.
As described, stacking containers in a 180° stacking configuration reduces the overall height of the stacked containers in regard to the 0° stacking configuration. Thus, retailers can place more of the stacked containers in less space for storage until the provider of the baked goods retrieves them to be filled at a warehouse or bakery. However, when the baked product manufacturer retrieves the empty containers stacked in the 180° stacking configuration, it is sometimes difficult to un-stack the empty containers. It is difficult to unstuck the empty containers because the stacking feet of the upper container that fit within receptacles in the lower containers tend to be difficult to extract from the receptacles. When there are hundreds of containers to unstack and move, increasing the ease of un-stacking can make a considerable difference in the time and effort required to unstack the containers, thereby saving money.
Further, known containers suffer from problems when fully loaded and stacked in 0° stacking configurations. Because containers are manufactured to tight size and weight tolerances, the amount of plastic used (in most cases, high density polyethylene (HDPE) is used to manufacture the containers) is reduced to an amount that sometimes is inadequate to fully support the weight of the baked products. When a container is fully loaded, bending of the base of the container can occur which can damage the container and more importantly the product located in a lower container.
Finally, as well known to those of skill in the art of the invention, certain retailers have increased their scope of operations and market share so that they can purchase hundreds, if not thousands, of packages of product from certain manufacturers. At the level of operation that these retailers operate under, they must pay particular attention to increasing efficiencies or they will easily lose the money they are saving by purchasing and selling baked product in bulk quantities. Therefore, certain of these retailers require that product identification stickers be placed on the containers so that machines can automatically record the product stored within the containers, and assist in loading the containers on carts for easier placement in the retail space. These stickers generally will use bar codes and/or other electronically readable indicia (e.g., RFID tags). When the containers are returned to the manufacturer (or their warehouse), the stickers must be removed. Unfortunately, known containers have extremely flat surfaces that make it very difficult to remove the stickers. Further, before or after the stickers are removed, other machines count the containers using photo-detection equipment. The photo-detection equipment uses a light beam, usually a low power level laser beam, to detect and count the containers as they move along conveyors. Known containers can cause mis-counts in the detection equipment as the high gloss surfaces associated with HDPE plastic used in the containers causes false readings.
Thus, a need exists for a container that overcomes the problems described above of difficulty in un-stacking in a 180 stacking configuration, bending, sticker removal, and false detections by automated counting equipment.